1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H), and more particularly to a method and system that can easily provide a DVB-H terminal with configuration information of a broadcast image, and the DVB-H terminal therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile broadcast technology is being recognized as a must-have application of next-generation mobile terminals. Various mobile broadcast standardizations have been and continue to be developed, and mobile broadcast services are already being provided. Examples of mobile broadcast standards are Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H), Terrestrial-Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB), MediaFLO, and the like. In DVB-H, a DVB-H terminal configures an image of a DVB-H broadcast service after first receiving and processing meta-information required for receiving an actual video/audio stream from a broadcast server, thereby providing a user with a multimedia broadcast service.
The meta-information includes not only actual broadcast reception information, but also detailed information regarding an associated service for the user. For example, in DVB-H, the meta-information is a specific service name, genre, service time, and the like. The meta-information is defined in a DVB-H Convergence of Broadcast and Mobile Services (CBMS) standard. The DVB-H terminal receives the meta-information, stores the received meta-information in an internal storage device, and displays the stored meta-information to the user via a unique Graphical User Interface (GUI). The user selects services using the GUI. However, the meta-information does not include information regarding how to actually display broadcast information on the DVB-H terminal.
Although a broadcast provider can control the meta-information, a scheme for actually configuring and displaying the meta-information in the DVB-H terminal is wholly determined by a GUI application program of the DVB-H terminal rather than the broadcast provider.
A multimedia broadcast includes channels or content of various genres such as news, sports, shopping, drama, movie, music, documentary, and the like. Various images should be configured on the basis of channel or content characteristics. Active research is being conducted on multimedia scene configuration standards for mobile terminals as well as mobile broadcast standards. For example, the multimedia scene configuration standards are a Binary Format for Scene (BIFS) standard and a Lightweight Application Scene Representation (LASeR) standard. These standards describe how to actually configure multimedia objects such as graphics and events with video/audio in an image and the relationship between objects and user inputs. However, the existing DVB-H technology only provides a broadcast image using a specific image configuration scheme pre-implemented within the terminal, but may not provide linking information related to an image configuration standard.
There exist limitations in displaying various types of multimedia broadcast services without a special upgrade process for software for displaying a multimedia broadcast implemented in the DVB-H terminal although multimedia broadcast formats continuously develop and change.